President Bush is expected to appoint Morris Abram, the former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
But both the White House and the State Department said Tuesday that no official announcement has been made yet. The U.N. post is a presidential appointment that requires confirmation by the Senate.
Abram also could not be reached for comment.
The U.N. headquarters in Geneva houses such agencies as the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization.
The 70-year-old Abram, who recently stepped down as chairman of both the Conference of Presidents and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, served as U.S. representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights from 1965 to 1968.
A Georgia-born lawyer now working in New York, Abram was president of the American Jewish Committee from 1963 to 1968 and president of Brandeis University from 1968 to 1970.
Abram also served as vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and as chairman of a presidential commission on biomedical ethics.
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